Embodiments of the present invention generally relate to wireless networks and more specifically to techniques for exchanging capabilities in a wireless network for dynamic configuration.
In a worldwide interoperability for microwave access (WiMAX) network, base stations and gateways may communicate. For example, a base station may communicate with a gateway using a protocol running over an R6 reference point. Also, gateways may communicate with each other using a protocol running over an R4 reference point. The base stations and gateways may be built by different vendors. In WiMAX, a number of features may be optional and may not be implemented by all the vendors. Also, as networks change, new equipment may be added. Because equipment by the different vendors may support different features, the base stations and gateways need to be configured to know which features the other base stations and gateways support to allow communications between them.
Each base station and gateway may be manually configured for each device it will be communicating with. Accordingly, each base station and gateway is statically configured when it is set up in the network. The manual configuration of each base station and gateway is time-consuming and burdensome, also it does not scale as the network grows. This is magnified by the number of base stations and gateways that are required to communicate with each other in the WiMAX network.